The Stars that Listen
by SomeLibraryRando
Summary: War is coming to Prythian and to save his world, Rhysand must call on a prophecy he only half-remembers in the person of a beast who looks like a beauty. Emma and Killian have traveled the world, eternal and deeply in love. Now they are called back to Faerie and asked to give everything up to save a world that never loved them. (Orphan of Arcadia Series)


Killian Jones woke in the dark.

It was late. He could tell it was late by the weariness of his human body. It wasn't quite moondark though- those still, quiet hours when the moon is set and the sun hasn't quite risen. He knew because his bed was empty beside him, but his lady, his companion of the last hundred years and more, was standing at the porthole in this cabin, white gown lit nearly as bright as noonday by the setting moon.

"I wondered if I should wake you," she said quietly, knowing he was awake in that secret way of hers, though he'd moved nothing but his eyelids. "Or if I should just go and return as soon as I could."

"Go?" he asked, sitting up. From this new vantage he could see that the gown she was wearing was not her nightrail, but a wide-skirted silk affair, which rustled as she moved and was detailed in shimmering black like a swan. When she turned to look at him, a tiara of black diamonds glittered from her brow. "To Court," he said, understanding.

His ship was a pirate vessel and bowed to no king or queen among men. The only court that his lady would visit dressed so was a court in the uncanny halls of the Fey.

"The Lord of the Night Court has taken a wife," she said with a small shudder. The Night Court was a particularly ghastly place, as he knew from the time, long ago, that he had walked through her memories.

"And what claim has the Lord of Night on your presence?" Killian asked, swinging his feet over to sit on the edge of the bed and watch her.

The Lady shrugged. "Political, I'm afraid. The Underground doesn't get much attention from the High Fae in the overworld. An invitation to its Lady, particularly when that Lady is a creature usually ignored completely by the higher orders is as much a threat as an invitation. I have no desire for my lands to come to harm."

There had been a time, back when first he'd known her, when the theft of the Underground would not have concerned her in the slightest. When the Labyrinth had siphoned memory and the halls of the palace and the Goblin City had rung with silence. In the last century, however, the Underground had become a place of refuge for the outcast and unwanted from the human and fae realms. The Labyrinth had become a mirror of the Lady's own contentment, and had passed that contentment on to those who had wished themselves someplace safe. There was a small kingdom there now of goblins, changelings, piskies, sprites, and humans, all living together in harmony under the clever green gaze of the Lady of the Underground.

And when her consort found the endless, unchanging grey sky too oppressive to stand, they would away to the human world and their ship of dreams, leaving their citizens in the capable hands of their own Henry, grown now, with a wife of his own. They had chosen to return to the Underground of Henry's childhood and its ageless ages, though their daughter remained in the human world, living her life and having her adventures. If she chose the deathless lands someday, they would be hers, but for now, she was living in the world, and she only came by to visit her father and mother in their palace beyond the Goblin City, as well as the Lady of the Underground and her eternal human consort, who she called "grandmother" and "grandfather" though she now looked as old as they did.

The Underground was now a treasure the Lady would protect with all her not-inconsiderable power. Though Henry and his wife stood often in her stead as its Lord and Lady, it was the Orphan of Arcadia alone who would stand sentinel over them.

Even if it meant dipping her toe into the dangerous waters of the politics of the High Fae overworld.

"We shall have to go to the Palace first," Killian said, pushing himself up from the bed, and crossing to his wardrobe to pull on his boots. "I keep nothing suitable for the Seelie Courts on the Jolly Roger." Neither did she, but drawing items out of what seemed the ether was one of her many tricks.

He had not missed the fact that she had considered leaving him behind to face the dangers alone. He did not mention it, but he thought to leave her in no doubt of his thoughts on the matter.

She was hardly fooled. "I would not take you into that den of vipers, my love," she said, shaking her head. "The Hewn City is a deadly place in the best of days, when its Lord and Lady are installed? I can only imagine what horrors will witness."

"Have you considered that it's a trap?" Killian asked, his voice going sharp and accusing.

The Lady gave him a long look down her straight nose, her faerie green eyes lucent in the dark. "I am neither blind nor deaf, my love. I hear the drums of war descending into the Underground. The Lord of Night is old. The oldest of the current generation of High Lords." Old enough, she did not have to say, to remember the prophecy that had made her and given her power beyond even that of the High Fae. "He will wish to turn me to his side in whatever battle comes to the overworld. He _would_ choose to fight with a monster."

"And you would choose to go alone into a known trap?"

"I would choose not to take the agent of my destruction into a known trap, yes!"

"Agent-" Killian began, offended.

"_You_, Killian," she cried, and his name on her tongue had all the power it had ever had- it made him know her and want her and love her in great crashing waves. "If they so much as threatened you, I would give any power, the Underground, the world itself, not even for your life, but to spare you a moment's pain."

"Emma," Killian said, and as his name on her tongue washed away his anger and resentment, so her name on his scrubbed away her stubbornness.

She sighed and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, the silk of her skirt rustling, but taking on not a single wrinkle as she looked at him with hopeless resignation in her face.

"We cannot be as we are, my love," she said. "You must be nothing more to me than my human consort. A warm body for my bed. It is not so unheard-of for Low Fae to consort with humans, but to bond? To gift them eternal life?" she shook her head. "That is Old Magic, and forgotten by so many as to seem new. They would use it against us in a heartbeat."

"You would school me on obfuscation?" Killian asked, a laugh in his voice. "You who cannot speak untruth?"

The Lady glared up from the bed. "Trickery flows in my veins with the magic of my faerie blood," she said coolly. "You would do best to remember that, Human."

"Emma," Killian said gently, bending to take her hand and lift it to his lips. "I have known you lo these many years, and I know what you are, and you, my love, are an honest creature, no matter what blood flows in your veins."

The Lady sighed, for she knew truth when she heard it, not only when she spoke it.

"I remember enough of what I was born, and even the most honest faerie has more chance against the ranks of the High Fae than the most cunning human. You must do as I say- you must seem dull, witless, even enthralled to my power. They must notice you not at all, do you understand?"

"I am my Lady's to command," Killian said in a sweet, humble voice which was not at all like his own.

"You are not," she said, standing before him, looking into his eyes with love shining clear, "and I would not have you so. But if you will insist upon coming-"

"And I will."

"Then we must pretend," she concluded.

She set her hand in the center of his chest. Killian looked down to see that from it grew a wave of black which extended beyond her hand over his chest and shoulders and legs, transforming into a suit of black silk, detailed in swan white, the inverse of her own gown. On his head he felt the bare weight of a circlet he surmised was much like hers, and his hand was encased in a leather glove, hiding the fact that his left was a false hand. All this was accomplished in a moment and accompanied by the sweet smell of apple blossom and honey, and a quicksilver odor of ozone.

"Killian," the Lady said, her voice strange and fae with her use of magic. "Kiss your Emma now and know that she loves you more than life, for I shall not be as you know me for some time yet."

~?~?~?~?~

The Lady felt exposed. Obvious.

It was her own fault for choosing to wear her own swan white with only the barest nod to the sigil color of the Night Court. Her own foolish pride.

It had been the right choice, though, of that she was certain. The more these serpents focussed their hissing attention on her, the less they would notice her companion.

Though she had told herself it was wisdom, she knew she would never have left him behind.

"You look like a swan among crows," he whispered, and had she a heart, it would have warmed.

She had warned him to guard his tongue- no secrets must pass between them in these halls, for every shadow listened in the Court of Nightmares. But this, which sounded like an ordinary fawning compliment, but which she knew was so much more- this was why she could not have left him. Though it was dangerous, and though she might find herself guarding both his back and her own, he knew when she was afraid and had the words she needed to calm and remember herself.

The receiving line moved forward, and they stepped with it, regal as kings in the face of the sneers of the Night Court.

She would have stood out regardless, the Lady told herself as she and her beloved stood silent together. The fashions in the Hewn City tended toward dramatically exposed flesh- nothing the Lady would ever wear. So it had been a century and a half before when last she had entered the Court beneath the Mountain, and the fashions had only become more extreme since then. She would have been obvious for her reserve even had she chosen to dress in night black like the rest of the carrion birds.

At least the males still wore suits of black as they had before, though the cuts had changed subtly. The clothing she had given her beloved would blend seamlessly in among them.

The line moved again, and for the first time the Lady could see the High Lord and Lady.

He was just as she had expected from the rumors she knew of him. Beautiful as any creature in any world, his eyes were violet, his hair night-black, and his smile was cold as the space between the stars.

Her eyes cut to the man whose arm she held. Like the High Lord, his hair was black, his eyes vivid, but he lacked the uncanny stillness of the Fae. She liked the movement of him- the way his heart beat and his blood rushed and his hair grew. The Fae have little hair on their faces or bodies, but the Lady's companion had a neatly trimmed beard, and beneath his clothes he had hair covering nearly all of him, curling, dark, and coarse. She loved that about him- his hair, and his changing face, and his human foibles. She looked away from him quickly, back up to the royal dias before anyone could catch a whiff of the sentiment which could damn them both.

The High Lord's lady was a surprise. The Lady had expected a perfect specimen of High Fae beauty, perhaps with a spark of cleverness, for she had heard that the Lord of Night had elevated her to High Lady at his side, which was not usual. The reality was unexpected, however. The High Fae tended toward extremes with their looks, but the High Lady of the Night Court did not. Her hair was not blonde, nor black, nor brown, nor red, but a color that fell somewhere between blonde and brown. It was a color that The Lady had seen before, many and many a time, but not among the Fae. Likewise, Lady Night's eyes were not green, nor vivid blue, nor violet like her husband's, but a soft grey.

"She looks like a human," The Lady murmured.

"The High Lady?" her companion asked, frowning. "She looks Fae to me. Her hands… her ears…"

He wasn't wrong. Lady Night was tall and slim, as the High Fae always are, with long, narrow fingers and gracefully pointed ears. When she spoke, her canine teeth were slightly elongated, and her skin was flawlessly smooth as were all the High Fae.

The line moved again, and it seemed that the High Lady felt the power of the Lady's regard, for their eyes met across the ballroom for a single, terrifying instant.

The Lady of the Underground looked away first. It would not do to draw either ire or regard from the Lady of the Night at such an early juncture.

Her eyes fell instead on a creature standing at the edge of the dias. No High Fae he, the proud black wings rising above his shoulders put paid to that theory, though he looked otherwise like every other creature in the room. The Lady wondered at his place among these- was he a servant? No more than a guard? Or was he trusted, a member of the court?

Illyrian were a much higher order than her own species, but it was unusual for the High Fae to countenance any of the lower orders as anything even remotely resembling equal. Though The Lady had heard that the Kingdom of Night had an Illyrian army, one did not invite warriors to court. One did not become friends with weapons.

"High Lord Rhysand, Night Triumphant, and High Lady Feyre, Cursebreaker," a court attendant said importantly as The Lady and her companion reached the bottom of the dias.

It took no effort for The Lady to put ice into her veins as she looked up at the pair standing over her, lordly as kings. The High Fae were so proud- bandying their names about, forgetting the Old Magic that bound the lower orders.

But then, the High Fae had long since forgotten that there was still power in the Low Fae. The Lady could take those names, gifted so casually, and bring down the mountain atop them, leaving every other creature untouched, had she the desire.

Instead, she stepped forward and curtsied.

She did not bow deep, as though to her liege. She owed no fealty to these two creatures. Nor did she lower her eyes but kept them steadily on the High Lord and Lady before her, for she knew them for her enemy.

"You are very welcome here, Lady," the High Lord said, his voice low with a laugh behind it. "May we know your name?"

No, The Lady thought. Only three creatures in all of the realms had that, and the High Lord of the Night Court would not make four.

"I am called Lady Swan, of the Underground."

The name made the High Lord's eyes shine. As she had surmised, she'd been expected.

"I don't know the Underground," the High Lady said. "Where in Prythian are you found?"

Lady Swan turned her eyes to the High Lady's not-quite human ones.

"The lands of Prythian stretch beneath the sky, Lady Night. My lands, as their name suggests, lie below, far beneath these mountains. We are not part of Prythian and as such are subject neither to its treaties, nor participants in its wars."

Though The Lady did not take her eyes from the High Lady, her words were for the High Lord. _I am no part of your petty squabbles. Leave me and my people out of it._

"_Your_ lands?" the High Lady asked. "You have no High Lord?"

The Lady gave her an icy smile. "No, my Lady. Nor any High Lady either, you remain the only one in all of Faerie. High Lords and Ladies are bred or mated, and only from among the High Fae. I came by my lands through baser means, for I am made of baser metal."

The High Lady opened her mouth as though to speak again- she was clever, Lady Night. Though her eyes were human-colored, she was ruthless Fae through-and-through. Her husband interrupted her before she could voice her thought.

"Will you introduce us to your companion?" he asked.

The Lady smiled at him, and when she spoke her voice was poisoned syrup.

"Come forward, Sweet, and let the High Lord and Lady see your pretty face."

Captain Hook stepped forward and bowed low to Lord and Lady Night, far lower than the Lady Swan had done.

As the companion of her life, he stood as Lord of the Underground at her side and as such he owed them no honor, but in this place, with enemies on all sides, it would not do to elevate him so.

When he stood again, shoulders back, spine straight, eyes steady, the High Lady blinked in surprise.

"But you're a human!"

"How fortunate the Court of Night is to have a High Lady blessed with such sharp perception," Lady Swan said.

For the first time, she saw a flash of temper in the High Lord's violet eyes, and he growled low in his chest like the beasts that the High Fae pretended so hard not to be.

The Lady was not cowed and did not flinch.

"If you have looked your fill, Lord and Lady Night, may I extend my congratulations on your union and have your leave to join your court in their festivities?"

Without waiting for their permission, she gave a short, sharp bow and, taking her companion's arm to steer him before her, turned away from the furious High Lord and the confused High Lady.

She knew it was dangerous to turn her back to the Lord of Night, particularly when he was in a temper, but she would not slink away like a frightened prey animal. So long as she kept herself between the danger and her beloved, she would face the peril.

The Illyrian guard stepped in their path, glaring down at her. He had heard every word.

"Step aside, Illyrian," The Lady said, her voice hard as cold iron and lethal as ash wood. "Was I not invited as part of your entertainment? Am I not here to allow the Court of Night to goggle at the monster? Would you stand in the way of your High Lord's plan?"

"Stand down, Cassian," the High Lord said from closer behind them than made Lady Swan entirely comfortable. "Let them pass."

The Lady clenched her fist, her fingernails digging into the flesh of her palm. How dare they bandy names about like that? How could they be so cavalier with such power?

If she brought down the mountain, she would kill this Illyrian too. Didn't they know the temptation they laid before her?

Still, the Lady swept off, toting her companion beside her. Before she had quite gotten far enough away not to catch it, she hear the High Lady's voice.

"Rhys, what did she mean by 'monster'? And… 'baser metal'?"


End file.
